Recenzija: The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End
The review of: Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End. New York: Farrar, Straus in Giroux, 2016, 446 strani, ilustr.
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The review of: Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End. New York: Farrar, Straus in Giroux, 2016, 446 strani, ilustr.
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The article explores the exhibition activity of Russian emigres from the late nineteenth century to the early post-war years (second half of the 1940s.). Until now, historians have not paid much attention to exhibition activities of the Russian diaspora. The article uses catalogs of collective exhibitions as primary sources, which include materials from 180 exhibitions in 19 countries during the period 1917–1949. These materials were processed and coded into statistical data that were 0 9 tabulated and transform into diagrams that reveal dynamics of emigres’ exhibition activity. The geography, frequency, topics, and participants and organizers of exhibitions are identified, as well as exhibition classifications and exhibition that became traditional activities. The author examines challenges faced by the organizers and artists in preparing and opening the expositions. Particular attention is paid to exhibitions held in the USSR and Soviet critics’ reviews of artists-emigres’ works. The author studies the problem of participation of Soviet and emigre authors in the same exhibitions abroad and difficulties of such projects. Special attention is paid also to the role of the exhibitions in the life and destiny of some Russian artists abroad. A comparative analysis reveals features of exhibition activity of Russian emigres at different times and in different countries throughout this period.
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The article examines organized criminal activity by military espionage formations on the territory of the Warsaw Governor General between the Russian-Japanese War and the First World War. The study of this historical case became possible with the appearance of unique documents on foreign espionage, primarily stored in State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). The correspondences of gendarmes, counterintelligence and the Office of the Warsaw Governor-General, circulars, and intelligence on foreign intelligence activities helped shed light on the unfamiliar history of such group espionage. The goals and objectives of individual “nests of spies,” and forms and methods of their work, were revealed, providing a glimpse into some activities of organized crime by spies. Archival materials from formal inquiries and preliminary investigations for criminal cases on German and Austrian espionage were the main confirmation of a “spy past” in the Warsaw provinces. A study of criminal cases filed with the prosecutor of the Warsaw Court of Justice, and letters from prosecutors of district courts, judicial investigators, and officials of the Ministry of Justice provide a real picture of such espionage. The names of agents and emissaries or residents of German and Austrian intelligence, the scale of German and Austro-Hungarian intelligence activities in western Russia, the cost of secret documents, fees for cooperation with the enemy, judicial practice in espionage cases — this is not a complete list of information in these document. According to this study, the total number of spy networks and “spy nests” functioning in the Warsaw Governor-General can be established, as well as the number of “organized criminals” and those involved in committing criminal acts but avoiding criminal liability. In addition, signs of criminal activity indicated high functionality of this professional spy environment.
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The article represents reflections on A. A. Ivanov's “A Case of Honor”: Deputies of the State Duma and Duel Scandals (1906–1917)"(“Delo chesti”: deputaty Gosudarstvennoi dumy i duel’nye skandaly (1906– 1917)). The general structure of Ivanov's monograph may lead one to the conclusion that duel as scandals were rare episodes in the first Russian State Dumas, but a closer look at contents of the book reveals that such scandals were numerous, resonant, and quite characteristic of the time. Comparing Russian duels with those of European parliamentarians, the former had little in common with classical duels. The press was also involved in these scandals, giving wide publicity to dueling deputies and thus encouraging them to continue the practice. This suggests that duel scandals were a form of publicity stunts that often turned into the main goal of dueling deputies, to the detriment of state and party interests. As is noted in Ivanov's monograph, duels were illegal and condemned by the Orthodox Church. By taking part in duels, Russian parliamentarians publicly showed disrespect for law and church. According to the monograph, the police did little to prevent such conflicts, and this blasé attitude undermined the authority of law enforcement in public consciousness. Thus, all the parties involved in Duma duel scandals contributed to the development of legal nihilism, which became one of the foundations of the Revolution of 1917.
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The Italian postwar reality was characterized by a political world of contrasts when, after the Russian-German agreement, it was decided to continue the Italian military mission in Russia. In Italy, the “revolutionary” phenomenon was known from the early months of the Bolshevik coup, and there had been many debates over the “Russian Question.” This debate was very much alive and often involved authoritative members of the national intelligentsia. Italy, involved in its first world conflict, intervened in the Russian civil war with military personnel supporting the White generals against the Red armed troops. Such action, determined by the high-alliance commands, took place in different areas of Russia, in the north of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk's regions, Transcaucasia and Siberia. The Russian civil war was atrocious and bloody but, with their humanity, Italians brought hope to the Russian people, hope that died with the choice made in Versailles in 1919 of withdrawing the missions leaving Russia to its fate. Ignored by a great part of recent historiography is the activity of the Italian troops. In fact, Italy had been playing a key role with its military and logistical support to the Siberian and Caucasus population, at least until the Allied Powers pulled out of their missions because they considered the clash between Whites and Reds “una questione internazionale” (an international issue).
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The article examines the process of the appearance of the concept of “Yellow Russia” in the lexicon of Russian public figures and publicists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author analyzes the geopolitical views of a number of well-known Russian military leaders who proposed the use of various forms of control over the territory of Northern Manchuria, owned at the time by China, and had provided plans for the development of the territory of the Russian Far East. Using documents deposited in the fund of the General Chancellery of the Minister of Finance of the Russian State Historical Archive, the author shows a wide range of opinions among the country’s top military leaders on plans in the Far East. Despite differences in approaches and assessments of the situation in “Yellow Russia,” most representatives of Russia's military elite were firmly convinced that Russia could not give up domination over Manchuria. The author concludes that there was no clear understanding of what the Russian Far East should represent in the future, among both tsarist administrators of high rank, and high-ranking military figures. The disunity of the ministries and departments meant that officials in the capital rarely delved deep into the essence of problems of this region. The weakening of militaristic rhetoric occurred already during the First World War, which was unfolding unsuccessfully for Russia.
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Films of the criminal genre were widely popular among Russian audiences during the First World War and on the eve of the Revolution. Viewers of first-screen cinemas were attracted by foreign, French, and American adventure films, such as “Zigomar,” “Rocambole,” “Fantomas,” “Vampires,” “The New Exploits of Elaine,” and others. Mass audiences watched “Sonia the Golden hand,” “Vaska Chyrkin,” “Sashka, the seminary student,” and “Anton Krechet,” with their scenarios based on criminal news. “Stenka Razin,” “Emelka Pugachev,” and films about typical bandits remained popular. The reasons for the popularity of the criminal adventure genre are grounded both in the typical Russian pre-revolutionary situation, in urbanization processes, and in the expansion of the social basis of spectator culture as a whole. The “bandit” film portrays different sociocultural and sociopsychological needs of the viewers using strong sensations, escapist experiences, and safety. The image of the social bandit was attractive to lower strata audiences and was likely to show a certain escalation in aggressive behavior and crime in wartime society. Further, moral narratives of criminal films raised anxiety and expectations of narrow-minded viewers, since laws of the popular genre were expected to provide inevitable punishment for the criminals. “Bandit” films were successful business projects in cinematography in its early development, along with other popular entertainment genres of culture and leisure time practices in modern society. What is more, in some cases they appeared as аrt projects thanks to their creators’ talents, had an impact on art development, and represented the spirit of modernity.
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The review article is a polemics with theses presented in the book by Wiktor Marzec Rebelia i reakcja. Rewolucja 1905 roku i plebejskie doświadczenie polityczne [“Rebellion and Reaction. The 1905 Revolution and Plebeian Political Experience”], published in Łódź and Kraków in 2016. Undoubtedly, the book which is a new and interesting voice in the discussion of problems of revolutionary events at the beginning of the 20th century, according to the reviewer, is imbued with Anglo-Saxon methodology, and does not add any new factual contribution to the literature on the subject. Aleksander Łaniewski confronts a book written from the position of discourse-oriented historical sociology from the position of a historian’s workshop. Focusing on random fragments of the 1905 Revolution and ignoring certain socio-political forces is not enough to discuss the plebeian political experience and to give a comprehensive description of Polish political modernity. The analysis, among others, lacked a broader discussion of political subjects from both the “regime” (e.g. Russian monarchist forces) and revolutionary (e.g. anarchist) camps, or the Christian workers’ unions which were on the borderline between two poles of the revolution. Besides, in the analysis of plebeian political experience there was no voice of an extremely important ethnic factor – Jews (Bund, Zionists, Yiddish-language leaflets). In addition, some social groups (peasants, intelligentsia) and women were ignored, as well as some regions important for the 1905 Revolution (e.g. the Białystok Industrial District). It also seems that Wiktor Marzec sometimes falls into an idealization of the proletariat and Polish socialist parties. According to Łaniewski, the fragmentary treatment of the factual material, sources and literature on the subject allow to talk about the need for further research into the Revolution of 1905. The review also underlines that the book is written in a very difficult language.
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Until the 1890s, most public affairs surrounding the Slovak elites were managed from the small town of Turčianský Sväty Martin in the Turiec County, based on a long-lasting programme drawn up in 1861 that was mainly focused, in a classical approach from the late 1840s, on the language and national individuality of the Slovaks vis-à-vis both Hungarians and Czechs. A shift occurred in the early 1900s, having since deeply modified the main axis of the public and social activities in the educated Slovak milieu. This shift coincided with an emerging new generation influenced by a foreign experience observed personally during their studies in the Empire, especially in the Czech Lands, and sometimes abroad. Furthermore, it was based on long-standing family ties and local/regional solidarities. This paper studies the manner and extent to which these factors renewed the approach of social reflection in mostly Slovak Counties of the Kingdom of Hungary in the first decade of the 20th century.
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In this article, the construction of public works in cooperation with the state-citizen during fifty years period of time between 1866 and 1916 in the period of Tanzimat in Bingöl, Genc, Kiğı are focused on. These public works are a government offıce, a prison, mosques, churches, schools, construction of bridges, their refurbishment, the provision of the telegraph line and road construction. Political, military, administrative or social conditions which started with Tanzimat era were effective in accomplishing these works. As a result of some emerging new problems during the last period of the Ottoman Empire, some precautions were taken. These were: government offices were built to keep public under control because of some of the emerging uprisings; prisons were built to keep those caused riots; the construction of telegraph lines were made to meet the need of quick communication for public disorder problems; the constructions of roads were performed to overcome the pertinent transportation difficulties; churches were built to satisfy non-Muslims; schools, mosques and churches were built or refurbished to satisfy different parts of the community and meet their educational and worship needs.
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Ljubljana City Savings Bank and the Decline of Karel Pollak Industrial Joint-stock Company This year it is the 120'h anniversary of the establishment of Mestna hranilnica ljubljanska (Ljubljana City Savings Bank). On the basis of the archives of this monetary institution, the author of the following contribution explores the previously unknown event, never mentioned before in the historical overviews published to date, of the crediting of the major leather industry joint-stock company Karel Pollak in the period between both World Wars. The discussion focuses on the dynamics of the business relationships between the creditor and borrower with the emphasis on the increasingly tense relations in the time when the Karel Pollak company found itself in financial trouble. In the middle of 1920s the Ljubljana City Savings Bank granted a mortgage credit to the family joint-stock leather industry company Pollak in the amount of 25 million dinars, which was extremely generous for the circumstances of that time. The issue was not problematic until the Great Depression, which affected the Pollak leather company severely. A two-year conflict ensued between the City Savings Bank and this company, during which the owners of the company resorted to many dirty and unethical business moves. The dispute concluded with the bankruptcy of the Pollak joint-stock company and the takeover of its factories, carried out by the City Savings Bank. However, the consequences of the granting of this credit did not only affect the Pollak family - the Ljubljana City Savings Bank also suffered considerable financial losses.
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The author focuses on the life and fate of a lesser known Slovenian poet Fran Valenčič (1878-1916), a contemporary of the main representatives of the Slovenian modernist poetry. He explores the poet's contacts ivith the greatest Slovenian writers of the time (Cankar, Kette, etc.), his activities in thè literary field (including thè works published in literary magazines), his retreat into private life, and tragic death during World War I in the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian Army. The author tries to explain the role he had in certain literary circles in a specific period and partly also the reasons why the poet has not become more distinctively recognised in a wider social context.
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The review of: Janez Cvirn, Razvoj ustavnosti in parlamentarizma v habsburški monarhiji. Dunajski državni zbor in Slovenci (1848-1918). Filozofska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani, Oddelek za zgodovino, Ljubljana 2006, 319 strani, ilustrirano
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The special correspondents of The Times – London and the New York Times, G. Ward Price and Perceval Gibbon, followed the events at the 12th Soča Front in the end of October 1917, reported on the offensive of the Austrian and German troops at Kobarid and on the utter defeat of the Italian army which followed. Thomas Nelson Page, the American ambassador in Rome, also reported to the US administration in great detail on the events at the Italian battlefield. The analysis of his reports showed that both correspondents reported fully and in a timely fashion about the conditions at the front, but despite that they would periodically fall (or false and far too optimistic information they got from the senior Italian general staff officers. The internal reports that Page sent to the administration in Washington were realistic. Both major newspapers would also periodically publish extensive analyses of the military situation, prepared by the lInnamed military analysts in London and Washington or New York. These analyses corresponded to the actual situation. Namely, the military analysts also very objectively predicted the progress of the offe1lSive. They were of the opinion that if the Italian army struck through the Karst region before the GermanAustian offensive, they could have invaded the very autre of the monarchy. In this case the Slovenian territory would turn into one big battleground.
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Temporary emigrant Fran RadeIcek Slovene political agitator, publicist and editor, had to leave his homeland twice. As a good political organizer he was great threat to the then most established Slovene political parties. Thus they forced him to leave Slovenia, first time in 1911, second time in 1912. Raddcek had to leave Slovenia as an ardent National-Socialist (after the pattern of the Czech politician Vaclav laroslav Klofat) and YugoSlav. But in 1921, when he returned to Slovenia, he came back as completely different, almost irrecognizable person. His disappointment with Serbia and its policy when creating a flew Yugoslav state intertwined with his disappointments Wilh the then Slovene policy. Same as ill 1911 and 1912 Raddcek lacked understanding after his return to Slovenia in 1921, too.
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For the best part of its existence spanning over six centuries, the Ottoman Empire could most aptly be described as bureaucratic and agrarian. The paper analyses its economy, as well as economic institutions and reasons for its longevity. To this end, the author also analyses the economic and political situation in the Empire and its development. Just as it is impossible to speak merely of an all-pervading crisis in the Ottoman economy after the sixteenth century, it would be similarly inappropriate to equate all economic traits in each of the subsequent centuries up to 1922. The survival of the empire, in fact, depended on the central government's pragmatism, flexibility and ability to adapt to constant challenges. The Ottoman governing structures were sufficiently flexible to remain in power even during the transition to a specific capitalist type economy. However, the readiness of the Ottoman state to welcome changes was limited by its defence mechanisms, which tended towards the preservation of the traditional order. A total symbiosis with the new challenges in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries could not therefore be achieved.
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In the paper, the author deals with the polemics on the economic situation of Slovenia during the Great Depression, which ran on the pages of the Ljubljana and Belgrade newspapers Jutro, Trgovski list and Narodno blagostanje. At the end, the polemics are placed in the Yugoslav context and different perceptions of the economic reality after 1918 interpreted, with changes in relative prices and, consequently, the relative economic situation of individual Yugoslav provinces compared with the pre-First World War period.
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On the basis of a linguistic analysis of twelve documents of American origin, dealing with the situation in Carinthia, on which, at a peace conference after the First World War, the US based its decision on the determination of the border between Austria and the Yugoslav stale, as well as the areas in which a plebiscite was to be carried out in October 1920, the author presents the emphases which were decisive in the taking of these decisions. He further presents the message of these reports: whether they emphasised territorial (geographical) factors or nationalistic (ethnic) ones - or the territorial (economic) unity of Carinihia or the ethnic structure of its population. He also presents the views of Austrian and Slovene historiography on the geographical and nationalistic factors in the context of the 1920 Carinthian plebiscit.
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When, on 24 October 1918, the Italian army began its final offensive, it faced an internally disorganised Austro-Hungarian army whose soldiers, after an initial confrontaion and truce, agreed on 3 November, started to withdraw disorderly towards their respective homelands. A great part of this army withdrew across the Slovene territory which, at the time, was already part of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (SCS). Although the National Government of the State greatly feared the mass of uncontrolled soldiers, it succesfully managed the withdrawal, thanks to a well organised railway network and military supervision. Although the estimates as to how many military actually withrew across the Slovene territory at that time vary greatly, it is certain that the number of the defeated Austro-Hungarian troops ranged between 250,000 and 300,000. These were carefully followed by the Italian army which sought to occupy as much territory and seize as much booty as possible.
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The review of: Vasilij Melik: Slovenci 1848-1918: razprave in članki. Litera, Maribor 2002, 766 strani, ilustrirano (Documenta et studia historiae recentioris; 15)
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